"Greg will join our executive team and report directly to me," Chesky, the cofounder and CEO of Airbnb, said in a blog post Tuesday.

Greeley joined Amazon in 1999, inspired by Jeff Bezos's original letter to shareholders published when the company went public in 1997. The letter famously laid out the CEO's plans to focus on the long term and "obsess over customers."

"That letter described a unique approach for a public company, and the vision it contained was even more powerful than I fully understood at the time," Greeley wrote in a LinkedIn post late Monday announcing his departure.

Greeley held several executive roles overseeing operations finance, media efforts and international expansion before taking over Prime in 2013.

Launched in 2005, Prime has emerged as a central pillar of Amazon's business. Amazon has convinced tens of millions of customers to sign up for the $99 subscription service by offering free shipping, access to movies and TV shows, and now free two-hour delivery from Whole Foods.